The Optimal Credit Card for Electronics Purchases: A Spreadsheet Made Flesh
2026-02-11 · BuyGetRewards Staid Staff
Scope of Inquiry
The BuyGetRewards Editorial Staff set out to answer a question that should not require 1,000 words: "Which credit card should I use to buy electronics?" We purchased a whiteboard. We filled the whiteboard. We photographed the whiteboard. The photograph is not included here because it would alarm you.
The Candidates
We evaluated 14 cards. We will discuss five, because the other nine were either unremarkable or required annual fees that exceeded the GDP of certain micronations.
Tier 1: The Unambiguous Winner for Amazon Purchases
Amazon Prime Visa Signature: 5% back on Amazon.com.
This is not complicated. If you buy electronics on Amazon — and statistically, you do — this card returns 5% with no cap, no rotation, no activation, and no quarterly ceremony where you log into a website and click a button to tell your credit card company which categories you would like to earn rewards in, as if your spending habits are a secret you must reveal on a schedule.
Annual fee: $0 beyond your Prime membership ($139/year).
If you spend $3,000/year on Amazon (the U.S. average for Prime members is $2,662, but electronics buyers skew higher), you earn $150 in cashback. This exceeds the Prime membership cost by $11. You are being paid, technically, to have this card. We found this satisfying in a way that is difficult to articulate.
Tier 2: The Best Card You Forgot to Activate
Chase Freedom Flex / Discover it: 5% rotating categories.
Both cards periodically feature "Online Shopping" or "Amazon" as a quarterly 5% category. The problem: you must activate the category each quarter or you earn 1%. The Editorial Staff tested whether we could remember to activate for four consecutive quarters. We succeeded three out of four times (Q3 was missed; we were on vacation and the activation reminder email was buried beneath 47 promotional messages from retailers we purchased from once in 2019).
Both cards cap the 5% at $1,500 in quarterly spending ($75 max reward per quarter, $300/year). Adequate for most. Insufficient for anyone reading a buying guide blog at 11 PM.
Tier 3: The Flat-Rate Workhorse
Citi Double Cash / Wells Fargo Active Cash: 2% on everything.
No categories. No activation. No quarterly rituals. You buy a thing. You earn 2%. The transaction concludes. Both parties move on with their lives.
This is the card for people who value simplicity over optimization. The Editorial Staff respects this position while noting that 2% is less than 5%, a mathematical fact that requires no editorial commentary.
Annual fee: $0. Sign-up bonus: typically $200 after $500-$1,000 in spending. The sign-up bonus alone is worth more than the annual rewards difference for spending under $4,000/year. We computed this threshold because we compute everything.
Tier 4: The Stacking Maximizer
Blue Cash Preferred (Amex) + Amazon Visa + cashback portal.
For the reader who has followed this blog's advice on stacking — and we know you exist because our analytics show you've read three or more posts — the optimal configuration is:
1. Purchase discounted gift cards with a card earning 3-6% on groceries/wholesale (Blue Cash Preferred: 6% at supermarkets, where Amazon gift cards are sold)
2. Apply gift cards at Amazon
3. Route purchase through cashback portal (2-4%)
4. Effective return: 8-10% on electronics
This requires planning. This requires gift card inventory management. This requires a spreadsheet, or at minimum, a note on your phone. The Editorial Staff maintains such a spreadsheet. It has 14 columns. We are not embarrassed by this. We are not proud of it either. It simply exists.
The Recommendation
For most readers: Amazon Prime Visa (5%) for Amazon purchases + Citi Double Cash (2%) for everything else. Two cards. No complexity. 5% where it matters, 2% everywhere else. Combined annual rewards on $5,000 electronics spend (60% Amazon, 40% other): $190.
For optimizers: Add the Blue Cash Preferred for gift card purchasing at supermarkets. Your effective rate rises to 7-10% on major purchases. Annual rewards on same spend: $350-$500. The annual fee ($95) is offset by the first $1,583 in grocery-channel gift card purchases. After that, it is profit. Cold, numerical profit.
A Note on Store Cards
Best Buy, Micro Center, and other retailers offer store credit cards with promotional financing (0% APR for 12-24 months). These are financing instruments, not rewards cards. They earn 0 points, 0 cashback, and 0 airline miles. They exist to make expensive purchases feel less expensive by distributing the psychological impact across monthly statements. The Editorial Staff does not consider this a reward. We consider it a payment plan. These are different things.
The products discussed in this analysis are available on our deals page at prices we verified this morning. The prices were correct. We did not find this surprising.
— The BuyGetRewards Editorial Staff
